One night the De Longs were invited to meet with President Rutherford B. Hayes and the First Lady. Emma thought the president a “quiet, pleasant gentleman who did not impress me very much”—a description that more or less mirrors what everyone said about the milquetoast Ohioan. A Civil War hero, wounded five times, he had been elected—some said “appointed”—in one of the most acrimonious presidential elections in American history, losing the popular vote but winning the White House only after Congress awarded the Republican candidate twenty disputed electoral votes. (Because of this, many
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